Another Millennium poem

We stood in the garden as midnight grew nearer,
Some had champagne while me Gran had Madeira.
Not many witness a change of millennia
And so, round the world, from Caracas to Kenya,
In every village and every town,
We waited to count those last ten seconds down.

Then, all of a sudden, Aunt Liz let a scream
(Which fitted in well with the carnival theme)
And started to kick her left foot in the air,
Which caused all our nephews and nieces to stare.
“Is that how you danced,” asked young Will with a smile,
“When Handel and Bach were the top of the pile?”

But ‘twas not a dance that Aunt Liz was performing,
But trying to escape from some black insects swarming
All over her shoes and ascending her tights,
Seemingly fearless of scaling great heights.
“I wouldn’t be in their shoes,” said bold cousin Bert,
On viewing them starting to nose up her skirt.

Where they had appeared from was anyone’s guess
But soon they had doubled Aunt Liz’s distress,
And everyone squeezed in our small plastic torch,
While Dad bathed the garden in light from his torch.
Then Grandad began to scratch at his bald head
“Oh Lord, we are all being eaten!” he said.

Black insects, black insects, we slapped at our trousers
While neighbours peered fearfully out from their houses,
Till Dad got a hosepipe and, in a wild panic,
Shot out more water than sunk the Titanic,
And yes, it worked well for the insects all drowned,
A thousand black corpses strewn cross the green ground.

Alas! We’d forgotten to count down the clock,
But we were all freezing and somewhat in shock,
It seemed as if we’d been caught out in the rain
As we stood around sipping our watery champagne.
Then Mam kicked one slowly and motioned to Doug
“Is this what they call the Millennium bug?”